Absorbent sanitary articles, such as diapers, sanitary towels, incontinence garments and the like, have widespread utility in both domestic and institutional settings for such purposes as the care of infants, the management of menstrual discharge, and the management of incontinence. However, a known problem associated with the use of absorbent sanitary articles is that the articles have a limited capacity for absorption, which, if exceeded, will cause the sanitary article to become ineffective, e.g. to leak or at least to fail to absorb further.
Therefore, users of such articles, or their carers, must predict when a sanitary absorbent article is nearing its absorbent capacity and must then take steps to replace the article before capacity is reached. In situations where there are many users of such absorbent articles but relatively fewer carers, such as in institutional settings, the management of the capacity of the various absorbent articles in use becomes a significant administrative burden.
Systems which are able to alert the user or carer to saturation or impending saturation of the absorbent article are therefore of benefit. Such systems may take the form of an absorbent article having embedded sensors which connect to a monitoring unit. The monitoring unit contains data processing electronics which is able to alert the user or carer by means of a visual or audible signal that the diaper is approaching saturation.
In some proposed arrangements, conductive elements are provided which extend from a monitoring module to an absorbent core of the absorbent article. To provide sensing capability, the conductive elements may be pairs of conductive wires terminating in uninsulated end portions, between which an electric circuit may be completed when moisture is present in the absorbent core. Alternatively or additionally to conductive wires having uninsulated end portions acting as moisture sensors, other sensors such as temperature, pH or glucose sensors may be provided at the end of conductive elements for assessing biometric or medical information of a user.
However, it is difficult to run conductive wires through an absorbent article to a monitoring unit, especially when there is a requirement for wires to be retained at specific locations within the article, for example to effect detection or sensing at particularly well-defined regions of the garment or to avoid short circuits being inadvertently created between close-running conductive elements.